Around four o'clock the power went off. The house got colder. They lit candles and went on reading.
"'For Protection Against Fire and Water,'" Cassie read. But Melanie said the spell which came after wasn't powerful enough to protect against a hurricane, and Cassie knew she was right.
"Here, this is To Cast Out Fear and Malignant Emotions,'" Diana read from her own book. "'Sun by day/ and moon by night/ let all dark thoughts/ be put to flight.' Nice thought."
They went on reading. A Charm to Cure a Sickly Child. An Amulet for Power. Three Spells to Bind a Lover. To Raise a Storm - that, they didn't need, Cassie thought wryly. She read again about crystals: how the larger a crystal was, the more energy it could store and focus. The spell To Turn Aside Evil, she read aloud, although she didn't understand it.
"'Invoke the power which is yours alone, calling upon the elements or those features of the natural world which lie closest to your heart. These powers have you over all that is evil: powers of sun and moon and stars, and of everything belonging to the earth.'"
She read it again, puzzling. "I still don't get it."
"I think it means that as witches we can call on nature, on the things that are good, to fight evil," Melanie said.
"Yes, but how do we call on them?" Cassie said. "And what do they do when we do it?"
Melanie didn't know.
It got dark. The gray light from the windows got dimmer and dimmer and finally faded altogether. Wind banged the shutters and rattled the glass in the windows. The rain kept coming steadily in the blackness.
"What do you think he'll do?" asked Suzan.
"Something unfriendly," said Laurel.
Cassie was proud of them. They were scared;
she knew them well enough to know that fear was what was behind Deborah's restless pacing and Melanie's stillness, but none of them were running away or backing down. Doug cracked bad jokes, and Chris made paper airplanes. Nick sat tense and silent, and Adam kept Doug's headphones on, listening to the news on the radio.
At six o'clock the storm stopped.
Cassie's ears, used to the drumming of rain and the clattering and banging and howling of wind, felt suddenly empty. She looked and saw the others were all sitting alert.
"It can't be over," Suzan said. "Unless it missed us?"
"It's still out in the Atlantic," Adam said. "They think it should hit land in about an hour. This is just the calm before the storm."
"Cassie?" said Diana.
"I think he's making his move," Cassie said, trying to sound calm. And then every muscle in her body tightened.
Cassandra.
It was his voice in her mind. She looked at the others and saw they'd heard it too.
Bring your coven to the end of Crowhaven Road. To Number Thirteen, Cassandra. I'm waiting for you.
Cassie's fingers clenched on a piece of unfolded laundry lying nearby. She tried to concentrate on the power of the Master Tools, on the warmth where they touched her. Then she pushed with her mind, forming words.
We're coming. Say hello to Faye.
She let out her breath. Doug grinned at her. "Pretty good," he said.
It was sheer bravado, and they all knew it, but it made Cassie feel better. She inconspicuously wiped her wet palms on the laundry and stood up. "Let's go," she said.
Diana had been right; wearing the symbols of the coven leader and the white shift, she didn't feel cold. Outside, the sky was clear and the earth was silent except for the sound of the waves. Yes, the calm before the storm, Cassie thought. It was a very uneasy calm, ready to erupt into violence again at any moment.
Melanie said, "Look at the moon."
Cassie's stomach lurched.
It looked like a crescent moon, a silver disk with a bite out of it. But Cassie sensed the wrongness there. It wasn't a crescent moon; it was a full moon being invaded, overshadowed. She was watching darkness fall on a bright world.
She thought she could actually see the shadow moving, covering more of the white surface.
"Come on," she said.
They walked up the wet street, making for the headland. They passed Suzan's house with its Grecian pillars, a gray bulk against the moonlight. They passed Sean's house, just as dark. Water gurgled down the sides of the road in little rivers. They passed Cassie's house.
They reached the vacant lot at Number Thirteen.
It looked just the way it had when they had celebrated Halloween here by making a bonfire and calling up Black John's spirit. Empty, deserted. Barren. There was nobody here.
"Is it a trick?" Nick asked sharply. Cassie shook her head uncertainly. The little voice inside wasn't telling her anything. She looked eastward at the moon, and felt another shock.
It was visibly smaller, the crescent very thin now. The shadow was not black or gray, but a dull copper-brown color.
"Ten minutes until totality," Melanie said.
"About half an hour until the hurricane reaches land," said Adam.
A fresh wind blew around them. Cassie's feet, in the thin white shoes Diana had brought for her, were damp.
They stood uncertainly. Cassie listened to the waves crashing at the base of the cliff. Her senses were alert, searching, but nothing seemed to be happening. Minutes dragged by and her nerves stretched more and more taut.
"Look," Diana whispered.
Cassie looked at the moon again.
The dull brownish shadow was swallowing up the last fingernail-thin edge of brightness. Cassie watched it go, like a candle winking out. Then she gasped.
The sound was involuntary and she was ashamed of it, but everyone else was gasping too. Because the moon hadn't just gone dark, like a new moon, and it wasn't even the coppery-brown color. As it was covered by shadow it turned red, a deep and ominous red, like old blood. High in the sky, perfectly visible, it glowed like a coal with unnatural light.
Then someone choked and Sean made a squealing noise.
Cassie turned quickly, in time to see it happening. On the empty lot before them, something was appearing. A rectangular bulk was taking shape, and as Cassie watched, it became more and more solid. She could see a steeply pitched roof, flat clapboard walls, small windows irregularly placed. A door made of heavy planks. It looked like the old wing of her grandmother's house, the original dwelling from 1693.
It shone with a dull light, like the blood-red moon.
"Is it real?" Deborah whispered.
Cassie had to wait a moment to get the breath to speak. "It's real now," she said. "Right now, for a few minutes, it's real."
"It's horrible," Laurel whispered.
Cassie knew what she was feeling, what the whole coven was feeling. The house was evil, in the same way that the skull was evil. It looked twisted, askew, like something out of a nightmare. And it gripped all of them with an instinctual terror. Cassie could hear Chris and Doug breathing hard.
"Don't go near it," Nick said tightly. "Everybody stay back until he comes out."
"Don't worry," Deborah assured him. "Nobody's going near that."
Cassie knew better.
The inner voice, silent just a few moments ago, was telling her clearly now what she had to do. What it wasn't telling her was how to get up the courage to do it.
She looked behind her, at the rest of them standing there. The Club. The Circle. Her friends.
Ever since her initiation, Cassie had been so happy to be a part of this group. She'd relied on different members of it at different times, crying on Diana and clinging to Nick and Adam when she needed them. But now there was something she had to do, and not even Nick or Adam could help her with it. Not even Diana could go with her.
"I have to go alone," she said.
She figured out that she'd said it aloud when she saw them all staring at her. The next instant they were all protesting.
"Don't be crazy, Cassie. That's his territory; you can't go in there," Deborah said.
"Anything could happen. Let him come out," Nick told her.
"It's too dangerous. We won't let you go by yourself," Adam said flatly.
Cassie looked at him reproachfully, because he was the one who'd said that being coven leader might not be good for her; and he was right, so he was the one who should understand now. Of course this was dangerous, but she had to do it. Black John - John Blake - Jack Brunswick, whatever you wanted to call him - had summoned her here, and he was waiting for her inside. And Cassie had to go.
"If you didn't want to listen to me you shouldn't have elected me leader," she said. "But I'm telling you now, that's what he wants. He isn't coming out. He wants me to go in."
"But you don't have to," Chris said, almost pleading.
Of them all, only Diana was silent. She stood, mouth trembling, tears hanging on her lashes. It was to her that Cassie spoke. "Yes, I do," she said.
And Diana, who understood about being a leader, nodded.
Cassie turned away before she could see Diana cry. "You stay here," she said to all of them, "until I come out. I'll be all right; I've got the Master Tools, remember?" Then she started walking toward the house. The nails in the heavy timber door were set in a pattern of swirls and diamonds. They seemed to glow redder than the wood around them. Cassie touched the iron door-handle hesitantly, but it was cool and solid to her fingers. The door swung open before her and she went inside. Everything here was slightly misty, like a red hologram, but it felt real enough. The kitchen was much like her grandmother's kitchen and it was empty. The parlor next door was the same. A flight of narrow, winding stairs rose from the back corner of the parlor.
Cassie climbed the steps, noting with a strange amusement the incongruity of the tin lantern hanging on the wall. It was giving off a cold, eerie red light, barely brighter than the house itself. The stairs were steep and her heart was pounding when she reached the top.